Been playing this game for ~3 months now. My thoughts so far

[Laerune]

You are hindering people by not dpsing.
A bald not using Songs or a mage only using Ice skills are not using all their skills and therefore dont use their Full Potential.
A healer not dpsing is no Different.

Why do people trink healers dont have to dps? Tanks are expected to dps as well. DPS is a Team effort.


Explain to me why a healers doesnt have to dps.

First let start by saying that I agree with you that as a healer, you should atleast do damage, when you are able. But I have to disagree with few of your points.

Lets start with the healer role, in almost all mmorpgs (FFXIV is the first one where I have seen healers being expected to do damage and this was not a mainstream thing untill the speedruns started, which was around 2.3/2.4) the healer has one role, to keep everyone alive, so its logic to assume that all those healers who came from another game (and have played alot of mmorpgs as a healer) are used to one thing as a healer, which is to only heal. Another thing is unless you do the Novice Hall, the game will not tell you that its expected as a healer to do damage. The player learns the most during the class quest where you learn about a ability, but all the class quests with the healer class have you do two things, either heal someone or remove a debuff.

I do not understand that part about the tanks, as a tank you do dps by default when tanking, which can not be said for the healer role. The Cure spell does not do any damage when being used to heal a player , but the Halone combo of the Paladin will do damage and increase agro to enemies. The part about the bard is a little odd aswell, as a Bard you can do damage and sing a song at the same time, as a Healer you can not do this, so I would not realy compare those two things. A fair comparison would be a Bard not singing is the same as an White Mage not using Divine Seal while healing.

Comparing a Healer who is healing to a Black Mage only using ice magick is odd aswell, as a healer by healing and keeping the other players alive, you are doing what is asked of you as a healer, as a Black Mage, only doing ice magick, which is inferior to fire magick means doing less damage, which is against what is asked of you as a damage dealer.

Should a healer do damage, YES! But I do not agree with your arguments.

[Exidrial]

Let's be honest, our character is a brick. Heavensward gives you some flavour dialogue to give your character something of an individual personality, but like most games, you will always follow a set path. Even games hailed for their "player choice" mechanics, such as Mass Effect, suffer from it. In that game, you'll be BFF with Liara no matter what you do. They certainly could have done more with Minfillia, but whether you consider her a friend or not is when we get into the subjective side of things. I liked her well enough through 2.4-2.55 especially.

The "I" is supposed to be my character.I spoke for my character there.
The thing with minfillia is that she didn't really do anything that made me her friend.All I am doing is following her orders.
Ok look I know that it is hard to create interactions with the player character if he doesn't talk.I can totally understand that its extremely hard if you don't want it to look ridiculous.

But tell me, why should my character consider minfillia a friend?
Friends are people you can rely on and that support you no matter what.Haurchefant was a good example.Yeah he was kind of obsessed with the PC but he supported the PC.Even if it meant others would look down on him, he still cared.He stood by the PC in his time of need and even sacrificed himself in order to protect him.

Minfillia didn't really have any personality and I can barely remember anything that made me feel attached to her on an emotional basis.I can't remember her really acting out of friendship, it felt like she was always just acting the way she did because the PC is the hero of light.

First let start by saying that I agree with you that as a healer, you should atleast do damage, when you are able. But I have to disagree with few of your points.

Lets start with the healer role, in almost all mmorpgs (FFXIV is the first one where I have seen healers being expected to do damage and this was not a mainstream thing untill the speedruns started, which was around 2.3/2.4) the healer has one role, to keep everyone alive, so its logic to assume that all those healers who came from another game (and have played alot of mmorpgs as a healer) are used to one thing as a healer, which is to only heal. Another thing is unless you do the Novice Hall, the game will not tell you that its expected as a healer to do damage. The player learns the most during the class quest where you learn about a ability, but all the class quests with the healer class have you do two things, either heal someone or remove a debuff.

I do not understand that part about the tanks, as a tank you do dps by default when tanking, which can not be said for the healer role. The Cure spell does not do any damage when being used to heal a player , but the Halone combo of the Paladin will do damage and increase agro to enemies. The part about the bard is a little odd aswell, as a Bard you can do damage and sing a song at the same time, as a Healer you can not do this, so I would not realy compare those two things. A fair comparison would be a Bard not singing is the same as an White Mage not using Divine Seal while healing.

Comparing a Healer who is healing to a Black Mage only using ice magick is odd aswell, as a healer by healing and keeping the other players alive, you are doing what is asked of you as a healer, as a Black Mage, only doing ice magick, which is inferior to fire magick means doing less damage, which is against what is asked of you as a damage dealer.

Should a healer do damage, YES! But I do not agree with your arguments.

Well in my opinion the game not telling you to dps is not an excuse for experienced players arguing that healers should not dps if that's what you were trying to say.Nobody is expecting newcomers to immediately know what is expected of them because as you already said, the community in this game has a different expectation of healers compared to other games.

About the tank thing.I was talking mostly about DRK because thats the class I main.
Holding aggro as a DRK isn't really hard in my opinion.
You generate tons of aggro when you're using your aggro combo combined with Dark Arts and Grit.
So all you would need for tanking is your aggro combo, grit, dark arts and syphon strike.
Syphon Strike is to replenish mp.

I do not have to constantly use my aggro rotation to hold aggro.
I only use my aggro rotation once or twice in the beginning of a boss encounter and hafter that never touch it again unless for some reason I lose aggro.
Dark Knight can maintain aggro by dropping out of Grit and using the dps rotation.
So as a DRK I could keep aggro even when I'm only doing my aggro rotation every few seconds and nothing else.
This is not true for every content but then again I'm not expecting healers to dps when they have their hands full healing ;P

This would kind of work as PLD as well.You do not have to constantly use the halone combo to maintain aggro.

See BRD and BLM are expected to deal as much damage as possible.True.
A BRD however is not inconvenienced by using his songs afaik.Haven't played BRD yet but I am in the process of leveling one right now though.
A BLM is not inconvenienced by using skills other than Ice skills as well.
A healer is not inconvenienced by using healing abilities.
A Tank is not inconvenienced by using skill other than their aggro combo.

What you are saying is that a healers job is to keep everyone alive.A Tanks job is to hold aggro and a DPS job is to DPS.
A BRD has songs that do not directly increase their damage.Since they are DPS why should they use songs that do not increase DPS?
The answer is:because it helps the party.
A DRK has skills that don't generate much aggro compared to the aggro rotation, so why should they use those skills?
The answer is:because it helps the party.
A Healer has skills that do not heal players, so why should they use those skills?
The answer is:because it helps the party.

I am NOT saying that Healers should only use DPS skills.I'm NOT saying tanks should only use DPS skills.I'm NOT saying DDs should use group utility/cc skills.
I'm saying each class should fulfill their role but in the proccess of it they should use all the skills available to them as long as they are not inconvenienced too much by them.

DPS is a group effort.We are a TEAM after all.

I already said it and I'll say it again:
In casual content, there is almost no risk of dying if the healer is not completely brain afk.
Healers often times just stand around doing nothing.This is the problem here.

I know it may sound like I repeat myself but think about this:
What if tanks had skills that dealt no damage but generated more aggro than their aggro rotation.
Do you think people would expect tanks to only use those skills or do you think people would expect the tank to use skills that deal damage/debuff the enemy/whatever?

I get that you, Laerune, are saying that healers should deal damage when they are able to but since this is an open discussion I wanted to elaborate further.

**Reinha is making a good point on page 8

[Kallera]

Count me among the masses that do not like Minfillia. She made a fair chunk of ARR a tedious "primal of the week" affair. I do like the HW storyline more than arr, partly because i don't quite see the scions eye to eye, and write off the smiles and nods as part of the job. It's not like I agreed to it in the first place, Minfillia just told me that people with the echo get discriminated and hunted down, of which I've seen 0 instances so...add "liar" on top of it!

My own headcanon for the character may not be totally in line with what se views as their "Warrior of Light", but that's all right...she was always an adventurer first.

[Lewtskie]

Ok look I know that it is hard to create interactions with the player character if he doesn't talk.I can totally understand that its extremely hard if you don't want it to look ridiculous.

But tell me, why should my character consider minfillia a friend?
Friends are people you can rely on and that support you no matter what.Haurchefant was a good example.Yeah he was kind of obsessed with the PC but he supported the PC.Even if it meant others would look down on him, he still cared.He stood by the PC in his time of need and even sacrificed himself in order to protect him.

Minfillia didn't really have any personality and I can barely remember anything that made me feel attached to her on an emotional basis.I can't remember her really acting out of friendship, it felt like she was always just acting the way she did because the PC is the hero of light.

Let's be honest, our character is a brick. Heavensward gives you some flavour dialogue to give your character something of an individual personality, but like most games, you will always follow a set path.

I feel like the addition of the "dialogue choices" has hurt more than helped. The idea of such a blank slate character, including lack of voice, is so its that much easier to place yourself in its place. You'd think choosing dialogue would make a difference but only to be reminded that she speaks without a voice while everyone else does just rips me right out of the moment. Plus, and this may just be with me, how my character reacts and responds physically(i.e. emotes) and how I envision her to are drastically different, and I've always had this issue. I'd have much preferred rather some non existent dialogue choice, instead choosing HOW to react, even if there was no reaction from the NPCs. Just an aesthetic to flesh out your player character.

That tangent aside, sorry this just made me think of this issue, they way they could have written all would have been better. I think the way it was done with Harchefaunt was much better. He had enough personality to play out the scene and you often didn't need your own "dialogue." In fact, I believe it was one of the moments your first meet him in 2.x in Coerthas? How he greets you and just the look on your face in reaction is what started to give me that connection to him.

Later down we come to last patch's(?) chapters, when you're dealing with the younger son. You display actions and facial reactions that actually starts to make your character feel lively. I want more of that, more energy, livelier animations; and like I said if in future to choose how to react. Drop the pretend speaking and just treat the character like they have nothing to say. Which you don't, thus far you have been the hands while everyone else have been the voice. Let's stick to what we're good at. Games in the past have done it very well. It just takes some more creative thinking.

[Berethos]

And then proceeds to "nicely/indirectly" get you to run stupid errands or deliver messages that can be done using such a thing called MOOGLE MAIL. Hello? Like you said I'm the Warrior of Light, not your courier/errand girl/lackey/mail delivery service.

To be fair, after doing the Post Moogle quests, the Moogle Mail isn't always the most reliable of services.

[bass9020]

You are hindering people by not dpsing.
A bald not using Songs or a mage only using Ice skills are not using all their skills and therefore dont use their Full Potential.
A healer not dpsing is no Different.

Why do people trink healers dont have to dps? Tanks are expected to dps as well. DPS is a Team effort.

Explain to me why a healers doesnt have to dps.

Because they don't. Yes sometimes its annoying seeing them just stand there but if thats what they want to do nothing can really be done. You can't demand people do something they don't want, if you feel they aren't pulling there weight then thats what vote kick is for. Though Id be careful with that incase you receive a GM response later. And its a first world problem more than hindering since the content is still clearly being cleared.

[Kosmos992k]

You are hindering people by not dpsing.

You are hindering people by being unable to comprehend thatahealer's primary role is healing, secondary would be status removal and buff/debuff and tertiary is doing damage. Arguing otherwise is a pointless waste of time that hinders progress.

[Exidrial]

You are hindering people by being unable to comprehend thatahealer's primary role is healing, secondary would be status removal and buff/debuff and tertiary is doing damage. Arguing otherwise is a pointless waste of time that hinders progress.

Because they don't. Yes sometimes its annoying seeing them just stand there but if thats what they want to do nothing can really be done. You can't demand people do something they don't want, if you feel they aren't pulling there weight then thats what vote kick is for. Though Id be careful with that incase you receive a GM response later. And its a first world problem more than hindering since the content is still clearly being cleared.

And still nobody explains why healers should not be expected to dps.
If you want to be stubborn and just be like "Healers don't have to dps because they're healers" then fine so be it.Feel free to quit this discussion then because you're not contributing to it.

Just don't be surprised when people consider healers that don't dps a waste and don't want to raid with you.You're lucky this games raiding community is so extremely small otherwise you wouldn't last long.

There's always the kind of people that just do what they have to do but are too lazy to put in some extra effort to support the people around them.
I still don't get how people can consider pressing a button every few seconds or spaming a skill fun.

[Bixillarla]

I still don't get how people can consider pressing a button every few seconds or spaming a skill fun.

It is fun because I enjoy healing. I do not find DPsing very fun, it is why I main a healer.

[Jetstream_Fox]

See BRD and BLM are expected to deal as much damage as possible.True.
A BRD however is not inconvenienced by using his songs afaik.

Wrong. BRD between 2.0-3.3 took 30% damage reduction on Ballad and Paeon, nothing was reduced on Foe, but Foe has the highest MP cost and kills your MP quick for such a small damage buff.

Wanderers Minuet damages the toolkit because the class wasn't designed around cast bars, this has screwed up how bloodletter works and gives us a dps loss since bloodletter can't be used whIle casting. So you can have 3 or 4 BL pops but only get 1 off if you're casting an arrow. Further on WM it gives us a damage buff but combined with Ballad or Paeon we only get 20% since songs are 10% less in the damage reduction as of 3.3.
Wide Volley has become useless to the point many BRDS have taken this skill off completely, this is again, all because of how they forced WM on the class and the skill reworkings that had to be done in the process.
There is also the removal of the auto attack and the fact we can't move with WM on without having to "shutter step" as I call it.

So yes a BRD is inconvenienced by songs.